


So Little Overgrown

by Woldy



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Education, Gen, Memorials, Tea, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-28
Updated: 2009-12-28
Packaged: 2017-10-05 09:06:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/40013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Woldy/pseuds/Woldy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Other people have their own ways of remembering him, whether fondly or no, but this is Neville’s memorial.</p>
            </blockquote>





	So Little Overgrown

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Thirty Days of Neville at [](http://community.livejournal.com/xnevillelovingx/profile)[**xnevillelovingx**](http://community.livejournal.com/xnevillelovingx/) . This ficlet is not betaed, so I apologise for any mistakes.

There are many ways to measure the passing of time. You can track the hands of a clock, scratch each day as a line on the wall, count the wrinkles, and Neville has done all of these. His favourite method is different: more elemental and yet more precarious, because it depends on the quality of the soil and flow of the seasons.

This tree was planted after his seventh year at Hogwarts, and then Neville could encircle the trunk with his thumb and forefinger. Now the tree is ten feet tall, branches spread wide in the sunlight and its leaves fluttering in the lazy breeze.

Snape has a formal monument at Hogwarts, a rather tarnished silver plaque fixed to wall of the dungeons, but Neville thinks that this suits him better. It’s not a showy tree, not frilly or scented like the shrubs Hannah likes to plant, but it has a sturdy obstinacy.

The trunk is dark, thickening each year, its leaves are unobtrusively green and in late spring it is surrounded by bees pollinating the bitter, arsenical nuts. Snape would, Neville feels, have appreciated a memorial that would poison the unwary.

Neville directs his wand and the sprinkle of water it is emitting at the tree’s roots for a moment and then pauses to survey his garden. It is always a challenge to get it back into order after the relative neglect of a school year and even now, in July, the Hogwarts greenhouses make demands on his time. It is nice to simply enjoy the blooming greenery for a few minutes and would be nicer still, Neville decides, with a cup of tea.

Neville walks back to the house, currently empty because Hannah is at work, and takes out the teapot. He reaches for the tin of tea and hesitates, before fumbling at the back of the cupboard until he grasps a small pack of lapsang souchong. Neville adds a spoonful for himself and one for the pot, pours in the hot water and places the yellow knitted tea cosy — a present from gran — over it.

By the time he’s found the tin of biscuits and taken one, the tea has almost steeped. He lifts the lid of the pot and closes his eyes to inhale the smoky aroma.

Gran always preferred Earl Grey and Hannah likes milky English Breakfast, so Neville’s introduction to lapsang souchong came from an unexpected source. Snape’s love for this tea is the sort of small detail that everyone else had probably forgotten, or perhaps nobody else knew — Neville doesn’t imagine he’d had many friends. Despite the insults and sarcasm, the time Neville had spent in Snape’s office had come to feel like a haven and the provision of tea was the clearest sign of where Snape’s loyalties lay.

Snape had been midway through a lecture about Neville’s reckless stupidity and lack of concern for school property — “Even were your foolish and misguided opinions not contrary to the policies of the Ministry, there is no excuse for defacing school property with shoddily ill-executed charms...” — when Neville had interrupted.

“Are you nearly finished? Because if not, I’d appreciate a cup of tea. I’ve been in detention with Professor Carrow since lunchtime and I’m pretty thirsty.”

Snape’s eyes narrowed.

“This request is merely further evidence of your utter incompetence, Longbottom. Any first year should be capable of understanding that were I inclined to offer any food or drink then it might contain any number of poisons, or Veritaserum.”

It was exhaustion rather than any heady sense of rebellion which prompted Neville to say, “If you wanted to drug me then you’d have done it by now. You could poison the whole of Gryffindor and the current Ministry wouldn’t care.”

“Don’t think I haven’t considered it,” Snape threatened, looming over the chair in his black robes, and dismissed Neville with an a wave of his hand.

Notwithstanding Snape’s dark comments about poison, the next time Neville arrived in the Headmaster’s office he was offered a cup of tea.

“Did you poison it, then?” Neville asked.

Snape glared as he said, “A remotely competent student of potions would be capable of assessing the presence of common classes of poison.”

“I’ll just take my chances,” said Neville, and took a sip. The tea had tasted odd on his tongue, pungent and almost oily, and for several awful moments Neville thought that Snape _had_ poisoned him. He remembered his racing pulse and scattered thoughts: did Luna and Ginny know where he was? Who would tell gran? He wasn’t sure she could have survived the loss of her grandson as well as her son and -

Neville’s concern must have been visible on his face because Snape’s eyebrow had twitched and he said dryly, “Your ignorance knows no bounds, Longbottom, if you are capable of mistaking lapsang souchong for a potion.”

“Is that what it is?” Neville said in relief, and had listened in growing fascination as Snape told him about varieties of tea and their uses in relation to brewing. Nearly all of it had gone over his head, but Snape’s advice about the visibility of Veritaserum in lapsang souchong had stayed with him - “the only substance in which its presence is discernible without an alchemical test” Snape’s voice said in his head - and Neville was grateful for it.

The tea must have steeped by now, Neville thinks, as the steam swirls in the air around him. He replaces the lid on the teapot, pours himself a cup and adds a splash of milk.

Neville carries the teacup carefully outside and takes a seat on the small wooden bench overlooking the lawn and his bitter almond tree.

In September Harry’s son, Albus Severus, will start at Hogwarts, which will inevitably draw renewed attention to and interpretations of Snape’s actions. Neville would never say this to Harry or, Merlin forbid, to the boy himself, but the act of naming seems presumptuous. Neville doesn’t know everything about Snape, but what little he saw in the Potions classroom and in those almost companionable hours in the Headmaster’s office doesn’t suggest that he ever wanted to be associated with the name ‘Potter’.

Other people have their own ways of remembering him, whether fondly or no, but this is Neville’s memorial. If Snape could see this scene then Neville doesn’t imagine he would have smiled — did Snape ever smile? — but his lip might have quirked.

“To Severus Snape,” he says, lifting the cup in a small salute, and then takes a sip.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] So Little Overgrown by Woldy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/542916) by [fire_juggler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fire_juggler/pseuds/fire_juggler)




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